A Lullaby
by Valiant No More
Summary: set just after VODT about Lucy readjusting to England, I tried my best to keep the characters "In Character" but I'm not sure how good a job I did. This story didn't turn out exactly as I wanted (Originally meant to be Lucian), but it was worth a shot. Anyway, enjoy!


**Author's** **Note:** This fanfiction is set just after VODT about Lucy readjusting to England, I tried my best to keep the characters in character, but I'm not sure how good a job I did. This story didn't turn out exactly as I wanted (was originally going to be Lucian), but it was worth a shot. Anyway, enjoy!

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It had been several months since Eustace, Edmund, and Lucy found themselves back in England, and they had begun readjusting themselves to the day-to-day lives they had left behind. As the summer hols drew closer Edmund and Lucy were expected back home along with Peter, who'd be returning from the country, and Susan who had finished her year abroad in the Americas.

Edmund had noticed a change in Lucy ever since returning from Narnia, she was no longer the ever smiling little girl he'd grown so close to over the past few years; she'd grown distant. Her smile never reached her eyes, her laughter was forced and grating, and whenever asked what was bothering her, she would smile sadly and hum an unnamed tune as she drifted away.

In truth Ed didn't need to ask what was bothering her, he knew it was Narnia. She'd always been more at home there than anywhere else, and to have it suddenly ripped from her, was like stripping her of her identity and leaving her a mere shell of what she'd been just months ago.

As they boarded the train back to London Ed guided Lucy to her seat and stored their bags in the compartment they were seated in.

"It'll be nice to see Peter and Susan again won't it Lu?" Edmund finally asked after a prolonged silence.

Lucy turned from the window momentarily before answering monotonously, "I suppose…" as she turned back to the window staring vacantly at nothing in particular as they sped along, humming, as always, the same tune from before. Always humming, one might even say incessantly so, as though her life depended on it, and perhaps it did.

"You miss it." Ed finally stated, after months of knowing why his Little Lu was wrong, he brought up the subject that had been avoided like the plague, and all she did was hum. "I miss it too you know. So does Pete, I've heard him say as much, and even if Susan doesn't notice it, we all see the loss of Narnia in her."

Suddenly Lucy's eyes were on him, no longer vacant and lost, but holding all the fire of battle and desperation that the valiant queen had once felt. "You know nothing of loss." She spat, venom dripping from her words.

Edmund stared at his sister in shock; he'd seen her this upset only on rare occasion and knew no one who had stood up to her when she was like this who escaped without injury. With a sigh, Ed watched her turn back to the window, and wisely chose to let silence reign.

That night, as the Pevensies were reunited Peter noticed the change in Lucy nearly right off, though she had greeted him with her normal exuberance it faded quickly and he was left with what Lucy had become, a mere ghost of her old self. Throughout dinner he tried, unsuccessfully, to get her back, making jokes and telling tales about what he and the professor had been up to, only to receive a slight smile, that would be gone within a moment, if he should look her way.

Susan also seemed to have picked up on the fact that something was wrong as she tried to pull her sister into conversation about classes, clothes, and boys; anything to get her to talk to her (though even the old Lucy would have found the conversation to be vapid and not worth talking about).

Now as the evening wore on not only was Lucy growing more and more withdrawn, she was growing more and more irritated, finally she could take no more. "That's it! I can't do this!" And with that, she fled the room.

The three remaining Pevensie children looked to one another for a split second before Peter stood up. "I'll be right back." Edmund made to stand up as well only to be stopped by Peter, "It's ok Ed, I can handle this."

Walking through the house out onto the back garden Peter tried to think of what exactly he was doing, could he really handle what his sister was going through? Did he really have any idea what she needed to hear, or was he just trying to play the part of the hero, High king Peter the magnificent? And then before he could even answer this for himself, he saw the slight form of his sister and heard his own voice call across the patio, "Hey, Lu."

Looking up she turned to face him, tears racing down her cheeks, then suddenly she was in his arms, clinging for dear life. "P-Peter… I want t-to go back!" Lucy managed to choke out between sobs.

"Hey Lu it'll be ok. Little Lu, look at me." Peter soothed detaching her from himself so he could look her in the eye. "I want to go back too, believe me I do. Do you think it was easy for me to grow into a man and then come home and be only a boy again? Do you think it's easy for me to pretend that I'm not someone important? Do you think it's easy for me to go from being high king Peter the magnificent to only being Peter? I lost a lot in Narnia, but then I gained a lot as well. I learned how important it is to be there for family, I learned that anyone can be magnificent, I learned that I wouldn't be anywhere without those people willing to put their own lives aside to help me in my own. We all miss Narnia, and we all wouldn't be the same people we are today without it, even Susan, we grew up there and learned to be ourselves. Just because you can't go back, don't lose who you are Lucy."

"But Peter, they called me valiant, here I am anything but. I can't do anything right, I'm not courageous in the slightest, I'm not noble, in blood or otherwise, and what about me would you call heroic?"

"Lucy, don't you see? You are valiant. Even before Narnia you were a fearless fiery one, you took things at face value and didn't let wrongdoing pass. And yet, through all that you were quick to forgive someone who'd done wrong by you and not want to bring up the past faults of a friend, it was in the past so there it would stay. When we went to Narnia it only brought out what was already there, you fought valiantly alongside Ed and I, often putting us to shame with your quick wit in a pinch. You were fair to the Narnians and quite obviously the favorite of the four of us, you didn't fear Aslan like we three, to you he had only ever been a friend."

"Peter," she finally sniffles after he stops, "I won't see them again… they were my closest friends you know. Tumnus, Aslan, Caspian… I don't know if I can do this alone." And then she began to hum, softly at first and then a little louder until she is singing, a Narnian lullaby. Tumnus had taught it to her early in their reign in the golden age, and she had nearly forgotten it until one night on the Dawn Treader she'd had trouble sleeping and had wandered out onto the deck only to find Caspian searching the stars, she had sat with him for awhile only to have this song sung to her once more on her last trip to Narnia.

Peter listened quietly for a while and then as her voice started to falter he broke in, "This is where it all started you know. Right here, when the raids began. We were shipped off to the country not knowing how our lives would change. I don't think we're meant to move on entirely you know, It's a part of us now, and maybe we will see them all again. For who knows when Narnia will be in need of its Kings and Queens? Now come along my Valiant Lu, we have a dinner to finish."

With those last words Peter found himself leading a much improved, though hardly healed, Lucy back inside to join their family, and though he didn't know it, Lucy would later swear that she saw Aslan watching them leave the garden.

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Thanks for reading this it means a lot to me! :) If you'd review this for me it would most honestly make my day! ;D


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